I got a Dazzle 90 and that didn't seem to work for me. I kept getting movement at the bottom of the picture.

Is there a difference between what results you get with USB and internal devices?

My processor is 2.67 ghz and I have 256 RAM I thought that I would be able to make DVD(and good looking ones) of some of my videos. Will I get good results from some other unit or am I just barking up the wrong tree??

You ask the same questions I have.
Hardware encoding takes a major load off the CPU.
I'll try to make a long story short. I've got a Leadtek PCI PVR card, video capture was either sharp with jerky motion or noisy with smooth motion. After installing Windows Service Pack 2, I've had hardware conflicts on the PCI buss. I've not been able to lock-up Windows with 4 or 5 items on the USB2 buss. I've read different reviews of the USB capture devices, and different people can have different results with the same capture device! I don't want to waste '$'. Looking for answers from people with experience with these things.

I'm a regular video capture user and would advise you not to buy a USB capture device. Go with a PCI capture card Canopus ACEDVio or at least one that uses a Firewire connector. Most people agree that USB is not fast enough to capture video. My 2 cents anyhow.

A note to jahern about the curling at the bottom of the picture he must be copying a VHS tape, This is caused by the heads scanning the tape and is not visible on your TV because it overscans all signals. Even though this curling is visible when you capture the video it will not show up on your finished DVD when you play it back on a TV.

usb 2 certainly is fast enough, i just bought a hauppagge pvr 250 usb2 and it works just great, can capture 12mb/sec dvd quality 60 mins per dvd and never drops a frame. The bundled software is adequate.
So far I have burned Van Helsing with is over 2 hours long and it looks great on my 46" Toshiba Theaterwide hdtv and many others........ i had a ATI AIW and it always dropped frames, no problems at all with pvr 250

loctite55, what are the specs of your system?
The USB 2 spec is more than sufficient for vidoe capture @ any available bitrate.
I've been doing a lot of research. Even with hardware encoding & audio lock, if the processesor speed is around 1.8 gigahertz or less, there is a good chance of loosing "audio-sync". What has been your experience?

The USB 2 spec is more than sufficient for vidoe capture @ any available bitrate.

Click to expand...

While it's true the speed is sufficient, that's not all there is to the USB 2 specs. The problem is that USB peripherals are "dumb", meaning the USB controller is completely responsible for managing the availability of transfer bandwidth, and unfortunately it doesn't know how much a given device will need. As a result, USB 2 captures tend to be poor quality.

Firewire devices OTOH are more like network nodes where each device negotiates for an optimal amount of bandwidth. That makes firewire (at 400Mbps) faster for sustained transfers than USB (at 480Mbps) and fine for real time capturing. In other words, if you want an external device you should go with firewire.

I have been looking at some of the USB 2 capture devices; Adaptec, Haug Win TV PVR, ATI TV Wonder, ADS, Pniicle, Dazzle and a few others - all using USB 2.0. I realize that these are probably low end, but look like they will work for what I need, mostly burning home VHS and 8mm tapes to DVD. However this discussion on USB not being adequate has me somewhat concerned. I had picked up a old (not sure of the year) Dazzle DVC device from a friend, that probably uses USB 1.1 - it only imports MPEG1. I was able to find a driver for Win XP (said it shouldnt work, but it does) and load the application. I was able to record some video (using the Dazzle software, MS movie editor didn't recognize the old Dazzle) I did a test and burned a DVD - and it looked great. So, it would appear that USB 2.0 should work fine (assuming that the old Dazzle uses USB 1.1.

The other option I'm looking into is to get a Sony DCR-TRV350 camcorder with the passthrough using firewire. I would think this would be my best option, but I'm not sure - still reasearching all of the stuff. I have a fairly new Compaq notebook with DVD burner and have firewire built in.

Any comments or suggestions. I'm trying to decide on the camcorder or video capture card, possibly with PVR.
Thanks,

I am strongly considering this LeadTek WinFast USB 2 TV Tuner/PVR.
I want to convert my daughter's dance recitals and home movies to DVD media. A plus is that I can watch TV and less tangle of cable behind my PC than with a PCI card.

LivnDgirl,
There are some other similar products, one which is rated high (CNET) is Hauppauge’s WinTV-PVR-usb2. Also Adaptec is another, but not as highly rated. Think the priceing is about the same.
Good luck

LivnDGirl, I found all + reviews on the Hauppauge’s WinTV. I don't know how it compares with the LeadTek. I would also be interested in any users feedback. Let me know what you decide, and I'll do the same and also pass along any reviews I can find.
Fun stuff,
FlynJim

I got a Dazzle DVC80. It sorta blows but with the WDM Drivers (sourceforge) and AMCAP (or maybe VirtualVCR) it's performing much better. Resolution is a little disapointing, but for the cost, didn't expect much more.

plextor makes a px mx402u that captures tv,,, vhs...whatever and as it's capturing, it automatically converts the files to burn on dvd, thus eliminating a step. the software it comes with (Intervideo Win Dvd) also allows direct burn from the source to the dvd burner.

I have used DVC 90 which comes with Pinnacle Studio 9 Quick Start software.
Let me advide you not to choose this one....it has not worked properly for me for copying VHS to disk. The audio
and video never sync up. All of the audio is captured by more and more video packets are dropped...maybe casuing the sync problem. Pinnacle sofware has no way to compensate to match them up.
I have Roxio, which I love for burning DVD's from pc files...but it will not work for DVC 90.

So my advice is to look for others here who can recommend some solutions that will work. I would expect that anyone copying non digital camera tapes (ie vhs) will have the same issue.

I am still reading & researching Video Capture Devices. Maybe, instead of USB 2.0, I'll go with Fire-Wire VidCap Device, However, I'll have to get a Fire-Wire add-in PCI card. But, I've read that those don't perform as well as a Fire-Wire port native to the MoBo. (In the interim, I've bought a stand-alone-set-top-DVD-recorder. Will play with it this weekend.) Did I mention my main purpose is to convert camcorder recorded VHS to DVD? I learn from other's mistakes, please keep posting.